This is a zine dedicated to death/thrash, technical and traditional death metal for more info contact hatredmeanswar@yahoo.com looking for new authors do to lack of time to cover everything email me at the email listed above if you want to do reviews and interviews for the blog.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Virvum Interview

.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
We're based in Zurich Switzerland, and we like Deathmetal a lot. It's the music we grew up to.
We've been a band since more than 8 years now, but only around 4 years in this current constellation (Berger, Gruhn, Morenzoni, Koelman).
We had the renowned Arran McSporran of De Profundis laying down bass for "Illuminance".

2.How would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording?
A journey to a place where timelessness reigns and nature blooms in strangest colours; A heavenly place far beyond comprehensible perception.
In particular we tried not to focus on writing a pure death metal Album, but focused on the essentials of creating music that pleases our own ears.
We focused on integrating a lot of abstract, cinematic, "beautiful" elements. For me, as I'm influenced by a lot of Drone, Ambient or Post Rock music, I tried to combine those elements with my natural playing style - which includes a lot of stereotypical palm muting and alternate picking etc.

3.The band has been around since 2007 but waited until 2016 to release an album, can you tell us a little bit more about the long wait?
We didn't just "wait". Growing up as musicians, your influences may change rapidly. As we are slow writers, there were times when, whenever we wrote a new song, the next song would sound a lot different to the previous one and so on. There was no way we could have put such diverse songs on one album. Plus, we were not always taking this band as serious as we've been taking it for the last 1-2 years. Around 2 years ago, the plans for this album were drawn and we worked hard on putting together an album that stands out as a whole.

4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
As a whole, "Illuminance" is a lyrical (and musical) concept album about natural, spiritual and sensual abstractness. The lyrics go into a more Sci-Fi driven direction.
They include sci-fi based topics such as the liquefaction of light, the existence of unknown colours and the general captivation of the human mind.

5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Virvum'?
People have been asking us this question a lot, specifically because it's also a song by Deeds of Flesh.
After DoF, Virvum can be described as the humanly unknown energy that holds any mass in the universe together, the primordial energy that makes all life possible.
As the term is really memorable, and the meaning after DoF fits perfectly into our lyrical concept, we knew all we needed is a good symmetrical logo.

6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Direct Support to Dying Fetus was definitely something special and meant a lot to us.
As we have no big touring history, we're looking forward to hitting the stages of this world as soon as possible.

7.Do you have any touring or show plans fir the future?
As we are currently with no label to put us on a tour, we are always looking for opportunities. There will be a couple of shows coming up in late 2016/early 2017 but if you are a promoter in Europe, do not hesitate to book us.

8.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?
Yes, we have received some offers. They were not of any big advantage for us. We refused because we believe that this new album is a great product, and the reactions we got from fans so far have proven that this decision was right. We are still interested in signing with a label if our expectations are met.

9.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of progressive and technical death metal?
So far, extremely positive. The hardest part about all of it though, is to reach the people that are potentially interested in hearing your music.
There, I can say that there is still a lot of potential in terms of scalability.

10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
More concept albums, more cinematic stuff, more natural-, less artificial tunes :-)

11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Getting up to speed at guitar, I'd say bands like Necrophagist, At The Gates or The Black Dahlia Murder have been some of my biggest long term influences.
Some newer bands I dig lately are definitely Fallujah (whom I played guitar for in 2013), Vale Of Pnath (who put out a fantastic record this year), or Animals As Leaders.
On the non-metal edge, I'm into a lot of artists like This Will Destroy You, Tides From Nebula, Tipper, amm.

12.What are some of your non musical interests?
Next to this band, we currently all still work ordinary jobs five days a week. There is not much time left for other stuff, but we all love to see new places around this world and hope that our music can soon enable us to do that.

13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thanks for reading this and supporting Virvum in any way, especially if you purchased "Illuminance". I hope to be able to meet everyone of you in person asap.